Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/510

 come along. The next place in the pilgrimage is St. John Lateran, where you said, you brutal Prussian, that nothing would induce you to protect a woman!"

"Come, come, this is eavesdropping. Something must be done!" said Livingstone to himself. He shut his guide-book with a slam to give them warning, and faced about resolutely. But they had paid no attention to his warning. They stood with their backs to him, and, oh! hand in hand like rustics at a country fair. But she had called him a brutal Prussian! And a puppy!

"Ahem!" said Mr. Livingstone, loudly, not knowing what else to say.

They turned about, and saw him, and seemed neither surprised nor ashamed. Miss Allen stepped quickly towards him, smiling and saying, "Oh, Mr. Livingstone, we were meaning to tell you anyhow.… Mr. Crittenden and I are going to be married."

She smiled at him dazzlingly as she spoke, but Livingstone was not at all sure from the expression of her eyes that she saw him. It crossed his mind that she would have smiled as dazzlingly as that if a lamp-post had stood in his place.

"Married!" he cried, really aghast for both of them. That sensitive, imaginative girl tied for life to that unfeeling, rough, hard fellow. What on earth did she, even for a moment, see in him? And as for Crittenden … any man with a little money of his own, personable enough to marry advantageously, throwing himself away on a girl without a penny either now or in prospect! To what a wretched, cramped life he was dooming himself and her … back rooms in greasy, third-rate pensions, never any margin for decent clothes.… "Yes, and we're going to live in Ashley, Vermont,"

Livingstone sank down on his bench, appalled. Worse than third-rate pensions! Worse than the human mind could conceive!

"Oh, no! No! No!" he cried to her as though he were clutching at her as she sank to ruin. "No! Don't say that! You've no idea … my dear young lady, you haven't the